The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Thanks to Evil Trout, one of the main individuals behind the very awesome Forumwarz, which you know I love, I was able to learn about a small indie game called Digital: A Love Story.

It’s completely fantastic.

I mean, sure, it’s a little cheesy, but you would expect that from such a title. But it’s a very great experience. You should roll through and play it right now, before I talk any more about it. It maybe takes an hour or so to play through? Give it a go and see what you think.

Okay? Did you play it? At least a little?

I really like this game, because it works very similar, both in mechanics and just in what it is trying to do, to Uplink. Uplink was fantastic because it made the things you were doing seem difficult and complicated, while still making them easy enough for you to do with no computer knowledge. You had to type in all kinds of things that you probably wouldn’t have to in most games, but that just made you feel more like a badass hacker, even if actual hackers would be doing completely different things, conceptually.
Digital works the same way, in how it makes you interact with the various BBSes much in the way you would have had to back in the day, but still makes it a bit easier than it would have been back then. The Notebook program tracks everything for you, like a modern game, but you still have to dial the numbers each time you want to connect, which just works wonders for setting the setting and making you feel involved in what you are doing.

At the same time, it’s doing some really interesting things with narrative. You can respond to anyone, send them messages, and talk to them. However, you never actually see what you’re saying. You can only infer what your character (which uses your actual name, if you follow the instructions the game gives you) is saying by what the characters in the game are responding to and saying. This is kind of amazing. You have completely control over what your character does, but not what your character says or thinks. You don’t even get to hear what they think, as you might when playing, say, Nathan Drake in Uncharted or something, where he’s going to make what he thinks clear, because he’s a separate person talking on screen. It’s… a really strange disconnect, especially since the game is designed to look like you are looking at a computer monitor from that time. You are supposed to be the character, and yet you aren’t. It certainly shines even more light upon the characters of the various AIs in the game, and what autonomy they have in their feelings and actions, where you only have autonomy in action, and not emotion.

Highly recommended stuff. I enjoy seeing the gaming medium used in a smart way. This is one of those times.